Both parties have plenty riding on voter turnout — high or low

Early voting for this year’s general election starts on Monday and, as always, whoever is Texas Secretary of State is actively promoting the vote.

“This is an important election and we hope people exercise their right to vote,” current Secretary Hope Andrade said in a recent phone interview while visiting West Texas to promote voter turnout.

This is something Andrade’s predecessor Roger Williams also faithfully did every time there was a major election, often crisscrossing the state as if he himself were on the ballot.

For Andrade, Williams and previous secretaries of state in modern times, promoting the vote is a priority because though in the 2008 primaries the state saw a record voter turnout of nearly 4.3 million, particularly among Democrats who drew 2.8 million people to the polls, over the years Texas has had one of the lowest turnouts in the nation.

What’s more later that year — a presidential election year — despite the hype about then candidate Barack Obama, only 8.1 million voters, or 45.6 percent of the state’s voting-age population, went to the polls, according to a recent Texas Tribune report. And in the 2006 election, when Republican Gov. Rick Perry faced four challengers and ended up getting re-elected with 39 percent of the vote, only 4.4 million people, or 26.4 percent of the voting-age population voted.

In all, an average of 51 percent of the state’s registered voters cast a ballot on election years and Texas ranks 44th in the nation, 8 percent below the national average of 59 percent, according to FairVote, a think-tank in Takoma Park, Md. The state with the highest turnout is Minnesota with 75 percent and the lowest is Arkansas with 39 percent.

Andrade is expected to predict this year’s turnout after early voting ends on Oct. 29. But despite another high profile governor’s race and as many as two dozen heavily contested Texas Legislature races — including the House District 85 match between two-term Democratic incumbent Joe Heflin of Crosbyton and Plainview Republican Jim Landtroop — plus about half-dozen close congressional races, no one outside the Secretary of State office expects a huge turnout.

If there is another low turnout indeed, this is bad news for Texas Democrats.

“The turnout is the key for us,” said state Rep. Roberto Alonzo, D-Dallas. “We need to motivate people to go to the polls.”

Alonzo and other House Democrats believe that despite predictions from House Republicans such as Warren Chisum of Pampa and Phil King of Weatherford that the GOP could pick up between six and 10 seats, their party has a shot of regaining control of the chamber. Currently the Republicans have a slim 77-73 majority.

The same Democrats are also cautiously optimistic that former Houston Mayor Bill White, their party’s nominee for governor, can unseat Perry even though recent polls show the 10-year incumbent getting more than 50 percent of the vote.

White has been pounding Perry with accusations of corruption — mainly for reportedly using two taxpayer-funded grants the governor’s office controls to reward large campaign donors and for appointing wealthy contributors to prestigious state boards and commissions. White is also telling voters that because of Perry’s alleged failure to lead, the state expects a budget shortfall of as much as $21 billion in the next two fiscal years.

But despite recent stories raising questions about the governor’s use of the two funds and reports that nearly 1,000 wealthy Texans he has appointed have given more than $17 million to his re-election campaigns, some Democrats wonder whether White can unseat Perry.

With this in mind, Democrats like Alonzo wonder if instead of a Republican Secretary of State, they should be the ones promoting the vote. After all, by most accounts they have the most to gain by a large turnout because Republican voters seem motivated enough.